The first 5 minutes

One of the charming attributes of dogs, besides soulful eyes and adorable bellies, is their effervescent, heartfelt greetings.

You could return from a trip to take out the garbage, and still be lavished with delighted yips and frantic tailwagging, as if you’d been gone since April.

For most dogs, saying hello lasts a minute or less. The barking, jumping, spinning and other tangible evidence of their happiness to see us dissipates, and they go back to lounging, looking out the window, or checking out the cat’s litter box.

And then there are dogs like Rocket.

Rocket is a 3-year-old Standard Poodle whose notion of hospitality means a minimum of 5 minutes of air licking, body slamming, and high jumping on the UPS guy, the Chinese delivery man, any and every friend of the family, and 87-year-old Grammy.

Rocket’s human companions had had enough.

Just in time for the holidays, they were determined to get their dog’s behavior under some semblance of control, avoid embarrassment, and rise in esteem amongst their pet-owning peers.

And no, putting him outside or in another room does not “fix” the problem; it just postpones the inevitable onslaught of paws and tongue.

Here is what we did:

1. We leashed Rocket and had him sit in the front hallway, with his owner standing next to him, a considerable distance from the front door.

2. With the front door open, we practiced having another person enter, say hello, and leave.

3. If Rocket remained sitting through this greeting scenario, he received praise and a treat.

4.As the saying goes “Lather. Rinse. Repeat.”

5. Eventually, Rocket always stayed sitting (on leash, of course).

6. We did this with the door ajar.

7. We did this with the door closed.

8. If we went too fast and Rocket forgot to sit, we went back a step to having the door open.

9. A few days later, we tried having him wear the leash with no one was holding it while we went through 1-6 above.

We attempted having Rocket sit without the leash, but he seemed more centered and focused with it on. So at least for the initial welcome, he wears leash. After all, we want him to be successful.

With practice and patience, Rocket’s 5 minute hello became a 1 minute hiya.

2 Responses

My boxer was similar as a pup and not every person wants that attention. These steps do work well and eventually the pup won’t need a leash. Some people, the inner circle, still get 5 min of shakes and kisses but controlled. He gets better every day.

I saw a woman on Oprah once who told a story about how one day she realized she was ignoring her children, and vowed to be more present in their lives. One of the things she started doing was to get openly excited when they entered a room, so as to acknowledge that their presence was important to her. I thought about this and realized that my dogs do this for me every day several times a day. They are ecstatic when I return home, wake up, give them a treat… They are my furry cheerleaders and I love them more each day.

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